MISSING LINK?

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 June 1932, Page 5

MISSING LINK?

2,000,000-YEAR-OLD HUMAN BONE. NAIROBI, April 8. Will “the missing link” be discovered at last? ' . „ A native village, consisting of a few grass huts, on the shores of Lake Victoria, near Kendu Bay, in Kenya, has provided archaeological evidence which is likely to startle the world of scientists. Dr. L. S. B. Leakey, of Cambridge, leader of the East African Archaeological Expedition ,who has been exploring th,o district for the past five months, reports that he has found the lower jawbone of the “homo sapiens” type of human being (i.e., the modern species of man) in deposits similai- to those of the lowest bed at Oldaway (Tanganyika), found by Dr. Leakey in October last. Dr. Leakey puts the neWly-discover-ed Lake Victoria man one step further back than the Oldaway man, who may have lived some 2,000,000 years ago. . The mystery is deepened by the discovery in the same- area of fragments of anthropoid apes, which Dr. Leakey i-j sending immediately to British exports. These were found in Miocene deposits. This last, discovery, coupled with that of the Lake Victoria man, leads Dr. Leakey to the belief that “the missing link” will be finally established. The Oldaway skeleton was discovered in 1913 by a Gorman professor, Dr. Hans Reck, but he was unable to find evidence on the spot to date the discovery. Dr. Leakey, however, last Octobex- discovered evidence in the form of extinct animals, fauna, etc., which proved that the Oldaway man went back to an age more remote than that of any similar discovery. Tools were found in all the Oldaway beds. Dr. Leakey also found part of the skeleton of a dinotherium —a prehistoric form of elephant. It was formerly believed that the first, man was himdeds of thousands -of years latex* than the dinotherium —Central News. The jawbone was found in the same deposits as tools of the Dinotherium and pre-Chellean period. Thrco other “homo sapiens” skulls were also found from deposits contain-' ing fauna identical with the Oldaway skeleton. il

Three examples of anthropoid ape (it is added) Were found on Rustinga Island.